How Trump's missteps undermined the US's recovery from pandemic

[signalmankenneth]

Despite the inertia and dysfunction that plagued the early stages of the US government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, the situation could still have been somewhat rescued if Donald Trump had merely backed the efforts of his own administration, public health experts say.

Instead Trump has shown little active leadership and frequently undermined government efforts and advice aimed at curbing the virus by encouraging reopening protests and refusing to wear a face mask.

As America pushes ahead with reopening businesses and allowing public gatherings even as Covid-19 infections have jumped to alarming new highs in a number of states, missed opportunities have severely undermined the recovery phase of a pandemic that has already claimed 120,000 lives in the US.

On 16 April, the White House issued guidelines to states on how to safely restart normal life again. Many epidemiologists saw them as flawed – too broad, still not backed with a robust system of testing and tracking infected people to prevent a resurgence of the virus – but it was at least something consistent to work to at a delicate stage of the pandemic.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trumps-missteps-undermined-uss-recovery-101517655.html

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[Iolo/Penderyn]

As various people have observed, 'populist' politicians - Trump, Johnson and that Brazilian clown for instance - know how to stir up hatred between groups and divide counties, but are completely lost as to what to do when elected except to start working on the next election, or abolishing the things altogether. The decision of conservatives all over the place to yield control to these idiots, as they did to Hitler and Mussolini, does rather suggest that capitalism is in a bigger mess than appeared, and I suppose most politicians are glad these shambling idiots are officially in power during the pandemic, however many extra lives they cost us.

 

[Tacomaman]

Any WWII history buff can clearly see how tRump has taken a page or two from the Hitler political playbook.

 

[Nordberg]

It is the middle of June and we still do not have the level of testing that Trump said we had in March. We had zero cases in Jan. and now we have1/3rd of the cases on the planet. Those numbers are spin proof. They indicate total incompetence. Trump just knew it would go away and he said as much. His actions told the same story.